Project 1

A street scene

It irritated me that the runner in the foreground had part of her feet cut off when I first reviewed the photo. But Photoshop’s suggestion to crop in square format surprised me how much better I liked the photo that way. Max is in a hat and turquoise shirt about to round the corner.
-K

A person or people engaged in an activity

This is homework that Bobby enjoys. It’s not all that exciting of a photo; I was having trouble finding a work scene indoors that might be more interesting. I like the unedited version of this one better than the one I edited and made him over colorized and the couch too crisp and detracting attention from his face.
-K

Head-and-shoulders portrait

Taking portraits of Nelly was challenging, and I’m not sure why she would not keep her tongue all the way in her mouth so I settled for partway. Those catchlights in her eyes should give me some extra credit from what I’ve read about photography, especially since I didn’t add them myself from photoshop. The assignment called for an indoor portrait which I think is harder than outdoor. Mostly for lighting reasons, but also it can be hard to find a suitable indoor backdrop in the house.
-K

A Beautiful Landscape

I like the pattern the fence adds to the ground on this one. The glimmering of the light on the ocean is lost and looks overlit. Also the reeds and fence in the foreground actually photographed as mostly silhouette but photo editing lightened it up to see color and detail.
-K

I noticed the sun setting between the buildings in the Jersey City skyline and starting taking some photos. I got very lucky when this seagull happened to fly right through the center of the frame as I snapped this shot. I also discovered that if you put the f-stop high while pointing at the sun, you can see sun rays, like in this other shot I caught of the scene.
-R

A Still Life

Maybe not your traditional still life, but I liked having an excuse other than self-aggrandizement to photograph baked good made from scratch. I like that you can see the graininess of the whole wheat. It was a little annoying I did not shoot fast enough to catch the pat of butter before it was melted all the way. This photo benefited tremendously from post-production; it was way too dark in the original. If I learn photoshop better I might take away some of the yellow tone. Regardless, I think this is my favorite photo this week.
-K

I call this one “Urban American Nutrition.” I don’t really like Big Macs but I thought it would be a good choice for this shot since they’re iconic and quite large. Naturally, the sandwich was quite a bit more compressed than in McD’s own photos of it and the container of fries was not completely full. Perhaps that could be a commentary on expectations versus reality. Incidentally, McD was running a “WcDonald’s Promotion” during this time so the logo on the fountain soda is a little different.
-R

An Action Shot

The action is not portrayed all that well. but it’s the best I got done for our homework The canopy over the rock limited my ability to show the height Bobby was jumping from- so it also looks like he may have just jumped up from the ground. It also looks like he may have just been sitting and slid off the rock. The feet are a little blurry which could show action or also could simply reveal I am an amateur with a blurry pic that didn’t snap it with a fast enough shutter. I am interested to see examples and practice how intentionally blurry photos might better convey action.
-K

Birds like to sit on the lamps that stand along the Hudson River Park and I have taken a few photos of them perched atop before. This time, the bird happened to take off in flight right as a took this photo.
-R